#widower!dean

Cas was killed by Lucifer in s12e23 along with Crowley. Mary vanished into the apocalypse world with Lucifer and is assumed dead as well

Dean is depressed and has lost hope and blames Jack for Castiel’s death specifically, that Mary made her choice but Cas was manipulated and died for it:

The fact that this line continues to show how different sam and cas' relationship is to Dean and Cas'. He Can't 😭

For 5 episodes following Cas' death, Sam is worried about Dean as he's being reckless, angry, and depressed. So, in Advanced Thanatology when at a loss about the case Dean jumps at the opportunity to use a LITERAL suicide kit that he MADE and is carrying around with him??? Once dead, he doesn't ask for his life back and tells Billie (Death) that he doesn't matter.

Btw all of this happens while he doesn't know that Jack woke Castiel up and he's conscious in the empty negotiating his release. (This doesnt even touch on the Romeo and Juliet parallels)

Billie lets Dean live

At the end of the episode, Dean gets a call, its from Cas and the light literally returns to his face:

In the VERY NEXT episode (mind you, Crowley is still dead and their mom is still missing/presumed dead) Dean looks like this:

And dresses cas up in a lil hat

           Sam’s call stirred him from that horrid trance, urgency reminding Dean of all else that happened. Of Crowley’s sacrifice, of the portal closing, of mom on the other side; those events crashed into him like a terrible wave, washing him out into a roaring sea that denied him any sense or reason. Standing, legs ready to give out on him at any moment, Dean stumbled towards where he last heard his brother.

           He forgot about the steps. Sam caught him, guiding him past the threshold and into the cabin with lumbering haste. Dean’s vision returned to him soon, though. He drew Sam further to his side, for a loose hug, then shoved his brother’s oafish frame off of him. Dean supported himself using the wall instead. “What?” he asked, growling, “What is it?”

           Sam tried to speak but got cutoff by a shrill cry coming from another room. Sam shrugged, jerking his head to where, Dean guesses, the crying originated. He’d also take a stab at who’s responsible for crying, too.

           Kelly’s son. Lucifer’s son. The whole damned reason Dean’s life lay shattered in the clearing out back.

           Hearing those whines and sobs rattle the cabin’s chilly silence helped harden what remained of his heart, enough so that the baby’s shrieking echoed in the hollow chambers of Dean’s chest. It made what he must ask next much easier. “You didn’t kill him yet?”

           Sam visibly startled, jaw clenched that familiar way Dean knows meant an argument brewed within; his brother’s puppy dog features deceived, hiding his true feelings. Again, as Sam readied to speak, the baby took his cue and interrupted with a damning wail. Sam pressed his lips into a thin, mangled line while he waited his turn.

           A minute passed, and it’s doubtful the little guy would lose steam soon. Dean sighed. He pushed off the wall, passing Sam as he followed the noisy little bastard. Sam stayed right behind him, heavy footsteps and chiding tone mixing with the crying to shred Dean’s nerves into oblivion. “You are not doing this, Dean,” Sam hissed, tugging on his elbow, “we need to talk about it first –“

           “Who can talk over all this racket!” He wrenched his arm free, storming into the baby’s nursery while Sam dawdled under the doorframe. Their entrance meant little to the newborn, who continued crying despite their entrance. “And I’m not killing him –“ he kept his yet stored in the barrel of his mouth, unfired, conscious of how it will be received in the moment – “gonna shut him up for a while, s’all…” Dean punctuated his claim by grabbing the baby, Jack if the painted name on the crib meant anything, and tucking him into the crook of his arm. He bounced him like he did Sam decades ago, like he would for any normal baby, cooing sweet nothing that tumbled out of him as if they were sand in a broken hourglass, shards mixed within. Dean spied a rocking chair in the corner and, with Sam’s piercing gaze studying him, Dean collapsed into it.

           That seemed to work. Dean’s gentle rocking, paired with a hummed lullaby cherrypicked from his past, put the hellion in his arms at ease. Jack stared up, transfixed by what Dean guessed is the tall lamp casting a gentle glow on them both; a lamp Sam, now in the room and by his side, flicked on after Dean sat down. It must be the center of his focus, because Dean wouldn’t believe the baby looked at him like he did; like he’s a bright and beautiful thing, deserving of attention, of being the center of his known universe. He didn’t want that, especially from him.

           Dean swallowed a curse and ended their contest, sure if he looked into the baby’s eyes any longer, he would damn the consequences and wring the life from this tiny body nestled in his hands. He waited for Jack’s fit to tamper lower and lower, rising only after a moment of uninterrupted silence. Dean carried Jack back, returning him to his crib. He added another mistake into the column of ever-increasing errors and glanced at Lucifer’s kid a final time. He examined him, searching for little horns or a tail or tattoos of sixes; he found nothing. Nothing that proved he’s more than a child, innocent and carefree.

           Sam hung by his shoulder, buzzing halo bothersome in Dean’s ear. “I think he likes you.”

           Dean huffed under breath, “I wish I could say the same.”

           He left. Sam trailed in his wake; tread heavy from being constipated with a smug righteousness Dean dreaded will be shat all over him when Sam had the chance. He was silent until the kitchen, then Sam struck. “His mother just died, Dean.”

           Dean shrugged, “So did ours.” He expected that to feel weird saying, but it hadn’t. Sam gaped at him, like it had. Maybe Dean’s in shock. Maybe he was too used to having a dead mom. Dean carried on regardless. “If you think a sob story’s gonna convince me of anything, try hitting me when the kids got enough pages to fill a book larger than Moby Dick’s, or ours. Right now, he’s a table of contents and not much else.”

           “Exactly,” Sam needled, poking Dean’s chest. Dean swat him away with the refrigerator door, creating a makeshift barrier to protect himself from Sam’s crusade. He dug around for something to drink, something boozy, as Sam prattled. “Look, Dean, we… I know our thing is – our thing is killing monsters but, Dean, he’s a baby. He – he didn’t do anything –“

           “He was conceived,” Dean said, “that’s enough for me.” His groping fingers pushed aside the carton of milk for a third time; he still couldn’t find the beer.

           “That wasn’t his fault.” Sam rested his hand over Dean’s where it rested on the refrigerator door, pleading for Dean to look at him by touch alone. Dean relented, darting his eyes for a fleeting glance. Sam’s brows were drawn in like a steep hill, and he appeared absolutely ghastly because of the refrigerator’s light. Dean fell back to his mission. “Lucifer… he set this in motion, and we’ve dealt with him.”

           “And what did it cost us?”

           Sam sighed. “Everyone we lost knew what this was about,” he told Dean, “knew how it might end. They were ready to risk their lives for this.”

           “We were here to take down Lucifer, end of story,” Dean spat, knocking items onto the floor in his fervor. He tore through like a whirlwind, throwing food everywhere. Eggs, lettuce, ketchup and pickles – no beer though. Dammit. “And with the kid kicking, we haven’t even finished our mission.”

           “Jack is not Lucifer!” Sam squeezed Dean’s wrist, begging for more attention. Dean’s spiteful, rigid glare burned a hole in the back of the fridge. He refused to move even an inch. “He’s a baby, and we… we kill monsters. We kill the ones who have no chance of being saved. He was just born, Dean. He had no choice in that.”

           “Who’s to say that he won’t choose to be a monster, once he’s old enough?”

           Sam strangled his wrist, now, Dean’s fingers numbing because of his brother’s impassioned grip. “We’ll make sure. We’ll raise him right.”

           This drew Dean out of the refrigerator. “We?” he laughed, bitterness churning in his gut. “We, really? You think…” Dean didn’t finish, speechless at the insanity Sam presented. He and Sam, raising Lucifer’s kid? He and Sam, sheltering the baby who ruined their lives? He and Sam… “I hate to break it to you, Sammy,” he continued, his voice returning, “but this ain’t the nineties. We can’t have it all, clearly. And we are not taking that kid in like some muddy stray.”

           “Cas wanted to raise him.”

           Dean gagged. The toxic rush of seconds ago disappeared, spilling out from the seam Sam pulled loose.

           Sam, at least, was aware enough to briefly mime an apology. His face contorted into a pained expression, exaggerated to better mangle his earlier fury. However, that’s smoothed and replaced with sterner features as he detached himself from his words, and the ugliness that they inspired. He stood tall, committed to the outburst, and from the curl of his scowl, Dean wouldn’t expect him to take back what’s been said. It will linger like the other ghosts.

           If that was how he wanted to do this.

           “Sure,” Dean agreed, “and that got him what, exactly?” He slammed the refrigerator door, startling both of them and the baby. Jack’s wailing picked up where he left off, although sharper and more annoying. Dean pushed into Sam, instinct urging him to soothe like he did earlier. Dean stopped himself, hesitating. He spun on his heel, leaving where he came in.

           Sam shouted, “You can’t just run away Dean!”

           “I’m getting some air, is all!” he yelled back, ripping the door off its hinges in his haste to leave.

           A terrifying gust rammed into him almost immediately, giving him the very air he craved. Then, a second wind blows in the opposite direction; stealing his breath as his gaze landed on the body of his angel, immobile, with black skid marks in a shoddy recreation of what might be wings splayed beside him like oddly bent branches. Dean blindly descended, too focused with Cas’s form than the stairs. When his feet reached solid, uneven ground, Dean slowed to a glacial pace. Cas didn’t react.

           Dean tried not to, too. Hand at his cheek, wiping some more stray tears, Dean failed.

           He ripped himself away, jogging from the backyard space towards the front where his true escape was. Dean white knuckled his keys, jagged teeth biting into the palm of his hand. Pain kept him from spiraling, from thinking, from staying there. And when he couldn’t use pain, key nestled in the ignition instead of his hand, Dean had the next best thing – open roads.

           The engine roared, overpowering the blood rushing past his ears. Dean demolished the speed limit easily, bulleting across the asphalt, pedal his trigger. It’s early enough he needn’t worry about highway patrolmen or wayward pedestrians. He drove fast, loose, and recklessly. Fuck Vin Diesel, Dean thought. Vin had nothing on him.

           Kelly’s cabin was a blurry spot in his rearview mirror, a speck he might scratch off with his nail if he pleased. Trees became indistinguishable from each other. Not that it mattered, Dean’s tunnel vision blocking his periphery. His eyes remained fixed ahead of him, uncharacteristically so. It took most his focus to keep like that, hands cramping on the wheel from throttling it. He counted dash after dash and tallied potholes as he hit them, stuffing his mind with senseless figures other than the lone one he abandoned in the field.

           Soon, Dean reached a nearby town. The greenery became sparser, leaves and wood replaced by buildings and city blocks and lampposts and streetlights. He hit his first light, a blip of red flashing for attention. Thoughtlessly, Dean flattened his foot against the brake; Baby’s tires squealing as she fought momentum. Dean knocked against his dashboard from the force, falling back only after his car fully stopped. He couldn’t see the streetlight dangling above. Dean knew he sat over the line, his Baby’s hood hanging in the intersection, asking for an accident.

           A second later, and what he was driving from caught up to him.

           Dean gasped, curling in on himself, hands glued to the wheel. His body seized with sobs that bruise, each tremor punching his gut. He used what little strength he had and glanced at his reflection. That speck on his rearview, that he foolishly clawed at, didn’t disappear; it was caught in his bloodshot eyes.

           He couldn’t continue driving like this.

           Red light, green light, it didn’t matter now. Dean crawled along to the nearest lot that belonged to a tacky chain eatery. Parking inside, Dean threw his car door open and spilled free of his Baby. He fell to his knees, hissing, denim ripping on impact and gravel scratching his skin. Dean staggered to his feet. Blood trickled down his leg from the open wound on his knee. He walked forward, dazed, while Baby idled at an angle, keys trapped in her ignition. If it were later in the day, someone might steal her. If Dean were acting like himself, he might care.

           He didn’t go far. Dean slowed as he approached the fast-food joint, stopping inches from the backdoor. His bottom lip wobbled, Dean raking his hair with twitching fingers. He stared at the door, at the wooden sign hanging by a single, rusted nail. It depicted a stereotypical pirate, with hat, beard, and eyepatch, painted on a blue background and encircled by cartoonish rope that framed this pirate’s face along with an oblong addition underneath of the word ‘BUCCANEERS’. The pirate glared ahead, at some far point, as if Dean weren’t there blocking it.

           But he was. Dean was here, while everyone else – everyone he cared about…

           “Why me?” he muttered, “Why’s it always… why do I have to deal with it, with the after, with picking up the pieces of someone else’s mess.” Dean growled, head bowed, eyes unflinchingly locked with the pirate’s. “Mom… Crowley… Ca” – he stuttered on his name, wounds still too fresh – “you’re gonna bring him back. You’re gonna bring them all back. After everything I’ve done for this shithole, that I’ve been through, it’s the least that I’m owed. I deserve to… I – I don’t deserve this.”

           The pirate ignored his pleas, it couldn’t answer him. And Chuck, apparently, wouldn’t answer him.

           “…Okay.”

           Dean launched himself at the pirate, picturing a brown beard instead of black, and a grayish blue eye where a black one was painted. He smashed it with one punch, face splintering and spraying everywhere. Dean continued wrecking it, nearly destroying the door in his fury. Aiming a final blow, Dean hit the sign off the nail and sent it flying from view.

           Exhausted, knuckles as bloody as his knee, Dean collapsed near the stacked crates and leaning pallets.

           A shudder traveled across his body, from the top of his head, dragged along each vertebra like a sharp, clawed finger, and finally making his legs seize and stretch out in front of him. Dean vacuumed in a deep breath, chest ballooning to contain it. He won’t release it willingly.

           “Dude…”

           Coughing, Dean glanced up at some teenager standing nearby, gaping at the scene. He wore a large brown jacket a shade lighter than his skin over a deep blue polo that matches the visor currently worn like a headband, so his bangs wouldn’t  his face. A ring of keys dangled in his hands. Keys that, Dean guessed, were for opening the very door he pummeled as if it were a punching bag.

           “Hey, man,” the teen asked, glancing between Dean and the wrecked door, “are you… like, good? Do I need to call someone?”

           A repairman. The teen’s manager. Neither would do Dean any good, but both will need to know about the damage he did to the property.

           Dean groaned, climbing to his feet. He swayed with the breeze, a lone willow in this blacktop clearing. Some of the blood from his knuckles drippled like morning dew would off its leaves. He advanced, the teen tensing as he moves closer. Their shoulders brushed, the younger of the two stumbling back a few inches, cowering in Dean’s presence. Dean thought he should say something, let him know there’s nothing to be afraid of.

           That felt like too much of a damned lie, so he caught the words in his throat and swallowed them down.

           He returned to his car, starting it like nothing happened, like his skin hadn’t torn and tears weren’t drying on his cheeks as he refused to wipe them off. Dean tapped the pedal and drove off. He drove the same path he took earlier, only in reverse. He drove to Kelly’s cabin, and all that waited for him there.

           Dean parked sloppily, again; however, pocketing his keys this time as he left Baby. He didn’t acknowledge the front door, shuffling into the backyard for another glimpse of Cas’s body.

           Cas was gone. His wings were still there, and Sam was, too.

           Sam dropped a stack of branches onto a large pile he must have begun gathering after Dean fled. He rubbed at his neck, steadily avoiding where Dean’s gaze was by looking at the pile. “I moved him,” he explained, “I figured we might as well start on the… on the pyres for him, and Kelly.” Sam paused. He grabbed a lone branch, snapping a twig from it. “I didn’t do anything else. Figured you would want to…”

           “Yeah.” Dean blinked, then imagined the shadows burnt into the ground rising and rising, flapping determinately, until they vanished. He blinked. Those wings hadn’t moved an inch.

           Dean headed into the cabin.

           He spied Cas’s body immediately, laid atop the kitchen table. Sam rearranged him during transit, closing his eyes and setting Cas’s arms at his sides. If he weren’t thinking about it constantly, weren’t reminded of Cas’s current state with every beat of his own heart, Dean might believe Cas was asleep. Or, at the very least, imitating it, since angels can’t sleep. They can’t eat. There’s a lot they can’t do. And Cas won’t ever not do any of that, not anymore.

           Sighing, Dean circled the table while tracing the edges of it with his fingertips. He reached the other side, where a gauzy pair of curtains hung. Dean swung his arm outward, going through the motions to free them. It’s quick work.

           Wrapping Cas with these curtains will take a lifetime.

            Dean started by lifting Cas’s head and slipping a strip underneath. He cradled him, unnaturally soft tufts of hair tickling his fingers. Holding Cas in such a manner encouraged further action, tempted Dean to do more. He succumbed to these voices, the fast few hours since they last sung weakened his resolve. Dean ran his bloodied knuckles across Cas’s face. He stained deathly pale skin red. He hissed, stubble like sandpaper against his cuts. He left no wrinkle untouched.

           Finally, Dean switched to his thumb and pressed it just below Cas’s lips.

           It’s maddening, touching Cas like this, like he always wanted. He dreamt of being able to for longer than he could remember. Daydreams and fantasies of Dean, curled into Cas’s side, leisurely and lovingly memorizing every inch of the other’s face. Those moments were always pretend, too human to ever be real, to expect from an angel like Cas. Now, as his thumb swept along the bow of Cas’s lips, Dean paid his respects to the thousands of imagined mornings and nights that would not be. Dean worshiped Cas in a way he never wanted to, but in the only way he’d ever be allowed to.

           “I’m sorry…” Dean placed a featherlight kiss to the corner of Cas’s mouth. Then, unable to bear looking at him, he wrapped the curtain over his face.

           He shrouded the rest of Cas’s body with military precision, robotically completing his ritual. Dean hovered at his side, tightly clutching the final knot in Cas’s wrappings. His head hung listlessly, the foundations of a prayer forming on his tongue. He gnashed his teeth together, smashing it, and the sentiment’s remains tumbled backwards. It ripped apart his insides like glass. The only person who would listen, who’d care, who might heal this hurt, couldn’t.

           Cas was –

           Dean let go, marching into the backyard. Silently Dean joined Sam, amassing wood in his stead while Sam assembled the pyres.

           Together, they completed their duties by sundown. It might have been sooner if Sam didn’t slack off to play nursemaid to Lucifer’s kid. He ran off at the slightest bit of static coming from the garish, incongruently colored baby monitor clipped onto his belt loop, dragging their duties out because of intermittent breaks. When they finally set Cas and Kelly on their respective pyres, the sky darkened to the same shade it was that they lost both of them.

           Dean handled the fire. He struck two matches from a box buried in a kitchen drawer, then tossed them into the kindling. Sam, meanwhile, held a very fussy baby that showed no respect for ceremony. His piercing shrieks rung out clearly, somehow amplified by the open space. And as Jack’s cries mixed with the roar and crackle of flames, along with Sam mindlessly grunting back in a desperate plea for Jack to stop, Dean gave in. He stole Jack from Sam, nestling the baby against his chest.

           His temper lessened while in Dean’s arms, and Jack soon quieted.

           Dean felt Sam’s stare on his profile once more, an uncomfortable heat much different than what radiated from the cremating bodies before them. He hated it, being gawked at like some zoo animal. Yet Dean refused to turn, to bark at Sam that this momentary lapse meant nothing.

           He’s only exhausted. Too tired to shutter the devastation on his face, every crack of Dean’s heart was on full display. He’s not in the mood to fight with Sam, either, aware he needed him more than he needed to lash out. He’s broken and couldn’t even manage the energy to toss Jack into the fires like he imagined himself doing.

           Instead, Dean embraced him. He watched the smoke of his angel’s body drift upwards, Cas leaving him for good, forever, and rested his chin against the small, soft head of Cas’s destroyer.

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